LIFE WITHOUT A COMPUTER

It's true. For two weeks I have been computer less, which means, having less than a computer. It's a long story...well, it's not really. First, my ten year old spilled lemonade on my keyboard and failed to tell me until it was too late. I remember saying something like, "Why is this computer going crazy and making a funny gurgling sound!" Dead. Then, a month later, while using the kids' computer  I hurriedly picked it up to take into the other room and failed to notice that it was still plugged in. The plug and I played tugawar and the plug won. The computer fell out of my arms and onto the hardwood kitchen floor. I lay over it like a long beloved kitten that I accidentally might have run over, hoping that with love and the proper amount of CPR I could bring it back to life. The cat was an obvious goner, but the computer seemed to have some life in it as it sputtered and churned trying to come back to life. But in the end it too lay cold and lifeless like Shadow, the mouse killing champion.

Two computers down in one month. Their warranties have long since expired, as have their lives. Just to get the hard drive is going to cost 250. The computer is eight years old. I'll be lucky to get the hard drive copied off let alone have the repair guys bring it back to life for another two hundred to five hundred dollars. Might as well bury it next to Shadow in the backyard.

Now I have no computer. I don't know what to do. I should go get a job because there is no way I am just going to clean all day long. No sir, not me. I keep the house tidy, but I am not a maid. (my family hears this quite often, usually with a raised voice and shoes and socks flying in different directions.)


 Before I wrote, I took care of little babies. My own. Then I discovered writing and my kids grew older and I've never looked back. And my babies grew bigger and went off to school. But this new life of no computer and no babies is empty and wrong and boring. And I never get bored. I wander from room to room with no purpose.  Of course, I could clean closets or under beds, or get on my hands and knees and scrub the kitchen floor, but then what? What's my reward? A clean house? I know that is what some people get off on, but me...not so much. I like a clean house, but I like to do other things as well. And as soon as the kids get home it will be dirty again and I'll be playing chauffeur and then where is my creative me time? I feel like falling on the floor and kicking and screaming and throwing a down right pity party. But I won't because I am a grown up. Instead, I will pull out the ice cream and have a spoonful...or three.

I have a rule about the TV never being on during the day, but I've broken it at least three times in the last week as I find myself curled up in a blanket watching a movie at 11:30 in the morning. Okay, I don't just find myself there like I was knocked unconscious or something. Let's be honest, I purposefully put myself there, but sometimes I wonder how it happened. Maybe I'm sleep walking. And the ice cream! Heaven help me with the needless calories!!!

I've come to the conclusion that no matter what the bank account says, and being January I can tell you it says, "Don't even think about it" I must get a computer. I was waiting until I could get the, you know, the big one, the creme de la creme of computers, but at this point I am ready to go down to the local electronics store and buy the cheapest version they have. I'll go back for the big guy later...when my ship comes in or I row out to it. I gotta do something and soon. I started watching the midwives series on Netflix. Now I'll never get anything done, except gather a second chin and cry my eyes out all day. Not productive. Not any way to live my life.

Any suggestions regarding a cheap good computer?